April 2011

Counterpoint's first issue - April 2011

REGULATION AS
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Gavin Bade
THE BOYS ARE
ALRIGHT
Kara Brandeisky
Interview with
BOB SHRUM
Counterpoint
a magazine of politics and culture
APRIL 2011
Jose Maria Aznarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
LATIN AMERICAN BOARD
Training the new face
of the right
Counterpoint
VOLUME 1.1, APRIL 2011
EDITOR
Eric Pilch
MANAGING EDITORS
Kara Brandeisky
Cole Stangler
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Kitt Wolfenden
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Gavin Bade
Rachel Calvert
John Flanagan
LITERARY EDITOR
Matt Collins
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Ethan Chess
DESIGN EDITOR
Jessica Ann
VISUAL EDITOR
Jin-ah Yang
DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY
Benjy Messner
CONTRIBUTORS
JC Hodges
Mark Waterman
Iris Cohen
EDITORIAL BOARD
Eric Pilch, Kara Brandeisky and Cole
Stangler
Photo used under Creative Commons from ehpien
Counterpoint
GENERAL INFORMATION
This magazine was made possible with the
support of Campus Progress,
a project of the Center
for American Progress,
online at CampusProgress.
org.
Campus
Progress
funds, trains, and mentors
students running a diverse
and growing group of
progressive campus media
organizations. Grants and assistance can help
you build and maintain a web site, expand
print runs, and promote your organization
on campus. For more, visit CampusProgress.
org/publications.
Counterpoint is run by undergraduate
students at Georgetown University, but
Counterpoint is unaffiliated with the University
and funded solely by Campus Progress. The
content is the responsibility of Counterpoint
contributors alone, and does not necessarily
reflect the views of University administration,
faculty or students.
Commentary, “On the Ground” columns
about life at Georgetown, features, reviews
and blog posts reflect the opinions of the
author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the
editorial position of Counterpoint. Editorials
reflect the opinions of the editorial board.
EDITORIALS
3 | MISSION STATEMENT
UNIONS UNDER ATTACK
4 | OUT TO BE THE SAME
The gay community has gained a lot,
but what has it lost?
2
Increasing hysterics over the plight of
the modern man
8 | AN ACCIDENT OF HISTORY
CP.COM
The Latin American Board at
Georgetown and abroad
INTERVIEWS
16| BOB SHRUM
Washington D.C. disenfranchisement
through the ages
The famed political consultant
discusses his years at Georgetown
and the Obama presidency
10 | THE POWER OF THE
PURSE
REVIEWS
A Canadian’s perspective on the
political philosophy driving the
American healthcare debate
SPECIAL FONT CREDITS
Email: editor@counterpointmagazine.org
Online at counterpointmagazine.org
How the EPA’s new rules will protect
the lower class while cutting costs
11 | UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE
AND SOCIAL FREEDOM
SUBMISSIONS
Counterpoint publishes a variety of
submissions from a progressive perspective.
Both pitches and completed manuscripts
are acceptable. Counterpoint also accepts
letters to the editor from any perspective.
Please limit letters to the editor to 400
words. Counterpoint reserves the right to
reject pieces at the editor’s discretion, to
edit for length, tone, clarity and accuracy,
and to choose accompanying headlines and
graphics. Email editor@counterpoint.org
with submissions.
Photo image used under Creative Commons
from Contando Estrelas.
5 | REGULATION AS SOCIAL
JUSTICE
How culture wars have morphed
into an assault on women’s health
If you have comments or questions about the
accuracy of a story, email editor Eric Pilch at
epilch@counterpointmagazine.org.
COVER
FEATURE
12| BUILDING AN
ALTERNATIVE
7 | THE BOYS ARE ALRIGHT
ON THE GROUND
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
Justus (italic, roman, and bold) by Justus
Erich Walbaum; Petita (light, medium, bold)
by Manfred Klein 2001-2008; Ingleby (italic)
by John Engleby
COMMENTARY
18| ESSAYS FROM THE BRINK
From his deathbed, a historian
reminisces
19| IN DONALD, THE JOKE
FALLS FLAT
As the “War on Terror” continues,
Elliott and Martin miss the point
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
We encourage an open discussion of diverse viewpoints.
Give us your opinion and feedback. Comment online at
counterpointmagazine.org
Check out our blog for more stories and coverage:
counterpointblog.org
Counterpoint
APRIL 2011
EDITORIALS
FROM THE EDITORS
Mission statement
D
uring the last three decades, the United States has passed
through a conservative era. We have witnessed a myriad
of consequences: widening inequality, violations of civil
liberties, a militaristic foreign posture, environmental
degradation, rampant consumerism and an increasingly vapid mass
media. Ours is a reactionary
era, but we have hope for a
resurgent progressivism that
can address the challenges
of the twenty-first century.
Counterpoint was founded
with the trajectory of recent
American history in mind,
and we will be guided by our
founding mission statement:
“Counterpoint is a magazine of politics and culture at Georgetown
University that will inform readers on critical issues of the day and
articulate a vision for a new progressive future. We believe that
positive change in American history has been brought about by those
who are unafraid to challenge the prevailing status quo. We will tap
into this tradition of reform while engaging readers and challenging
them to seek positive social transformation. The editorial position
of the magazine will be progressive in outlook, but not limited by
affiliations of party or creed. We intend to challenge and expose
present injustices while serving as a critical and thought-provoking
voice for change.”
We believe that the years of undergraduate study provide a fruitful
time to grapple with serious political and social issues. Students are
given the opportunity to pursue their academic interests, reflect on
the world and form opinions for
four years. Many Georgetown
graduates go on to work in
politics, business, the nonprofit sector, academia and
other fields where the power
of ideas is immeasurably
important. We believe that the
career decisions students make
and the convictions they hold
will have meaningful consequences, and therefore deserve serious
consideration and thoughtful discussion.
With all this in mind, we ask you to join us in creating a
magazine that will combat our present situation and comment on
the consequential issues of the day here at this university, nearby in
Washington, or elsewhere in the world.
We believe that positive change in
American history has been brought about
by those who are unafraid to challenge
the prevailing status quo.
Unions under attack
A
fter a year of quiet preparation, workers at the Leo J.
O’Donovan dining hall and members of the Georgetown
Solidarity Committee achieved a major victory for labor on
campus by successfully organizing employees into a union.
This action should be applauded by all members of the Georgetown
community and will go a long way toward addressing concerns about
worker mistreatment by Aramark, the company that is contracted to
provide food services at Georgetown. Aramark has a troubling history
with workers, and many employees have described a distinct shift in
the attitudes and actions of managers since Aramark won a contract to
provide food services in 2007.
Fortunately, Georgetown administrators made the right move in
reiterating their support for the University’s Just Employment Policy
and stressing that Aramark must abide by the workers’ desire to form
a union. The efforts of students, faculty and employees will almost
certainly improve the situation at Leo’s by allowing workers to bargain
for better wages and benefits.
Yet, as workers are making important strides at Georgetown, the
nation as a whole has been seized by disquieting attacks on unionized
workers. This assault not only harms individual workers by depriving
them of the right to bargain collectively, but also threatens to shift the
balance of political power in the nation.
The first flashpoint in the battle over union rights began in
Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker tried to end select public
sector unions’ rights to organize. Walker’s radical plan was defended
on the grounds that the state faced an enormous budget deficit and
state workers were unwilling to compromise over compensation and
benefits—a claim that ignores the substantial concessions public
sector workers had already made.
Democratic lawmakers responded by staging an unprecedented
procedural move whereby they left the state, leaving insufficient
quorum in the legislature. By taking advantage of a rule that requires
quorum to appropriate funds, they were able to prevent the legislature
from passing the law as it was written. However, Republicans eventually
rewrote the bill to remove funding provisions and passed the legislation
to snuff out public sector unions while Democrats were absent.
Curiously, this plan exempted police and firefighters unions, both
of whom supported Walker during his election campaign, laying bare
the true motivation of the Governor and his allies—eliminating a
source of political opposition.
Similar assaults against unions have taken place in New Jersey,
where Governor Chris Christie has launched an aggressive campaign
to prevent public sector workers from organizing, and in Ohio and
Indiana where the battle to protect public sector organizing rights is
ongoing.
Although the benefits provided to public sector workers in these
states are reasonably generous, unions have been open to negotiation,
and the pensions and health care plans were not stolen. Aggressive
state governors could have chosen to engage in tough negotiations
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
or even enlist the support of the public to put pressure on unions to
accept deeper cuts. In other states with arguably more severe fiscal
problems, like California and Illinois, governors have worked to
extract concessions from unions without violating their fundamental
right to have a seat at the bargaining table.
Instead, this group of extreme conservative governors used looming
budget troubles as a pretext to eliminate public sector unions, setting a
chilling precedent for their private sector counterparts.
The battles in many states over collective bargaining rights neglect
the broader implications of these attacks on unionized workers.
Historically, unions have won such important concessions as the 40
hour work week, paid sick leave and weekends.
Most unions do valuable work allowing groups of employees
to present a unified voice to management and improve their
compensation and benefits. However, unions have championed
a broader progressive agenda that benefits not only represented
workers, but also the welfare of lower and middle income Americans.
By seeking improved health care benefits, pay that increases with
productivity, a higher minimum wage, and improved workplace
safety standards, unions have unquestionably improved the lives of
American workers.
In the twenty-five states where a majority of public sector workers
are members of unions, nineteen lean Democratic in their politics.
However, in nearly all the ironically named “Right to Work” states,
where it is very difficult for workers to organize, the states are
controlled by Republican governors or lean Republican.
“If Wisconsin and Ohio and similar states in the North eradicate
public employee unions, it will certainly make it harder for Democrats
to carry these crucial swing states,” John Judis noted in The New
Republic. “The politics of the Midwest could increasingly resemble
those of the South—where God, guns, and race often trump economic
considerations among the white working class—and where, as a
result, the narrow interests of business prevail.”
While the battles over public sector unions continue, public
opinion appears to be turning against the aggressive overreach of
conservatives. In Ohio, liberal Democrat Sherrod Brown’s Senate
reelection campaign was looking uncertain before recent events put
his state in the national spotlight. Now, a recent Public Policy Poll
showed him carrying a lead of 15-19 points against a range of potential
challengers, including popular comedian Drew Carey. Similarly, a
recall drive against Walker and vulnerable Republican lawmakers has
gathered momentum in Wisconsin.
Heartening developments have taken place at Georgetown over the
past weeks, and in many ways the University’s labor-friendly policies
assisted workers in their unionization efforts—something that cannot
be said in a growing number of American states. The fight to protect
unions across the country is about improving workers’ lives and
ultimately about defending the necessity and relevance of organized
labor. In spite of often tremendous odds, unions have struggled for
immense gains over the last 150 years. We should not let politicallymotivated attacks from the right undo those hard-fought victories or
limit unions’ ability to continue their struggles well into the future.
Counterpoint
3
ON THE GROUND
Out to be the same
BY
J.C. HODGES The gay community has gained a lot, but what has it lost?
A
fter a spate of hate crimes in 2007,
the fall of my freshman year, many
LGBTQ students organized the “Out
for Change” campaign, which successfully
demanded more support for and recognition
of sexual and gender minorities on campus.
These students fought for, and won, a fulltime LGBTQ Resource Center and changes in
policies regarding discrimination. Ever since,
there has been a vast change in the gay life at
Georgetown: many more people are out, there
are gay leaders of student groups and there are
gay members of all different types of organizations and teams. Furthermore, it has become
a priority for many different organizations and
institutions on campus to make the Hilltop a
more welcoming place for gays and lesbians.
This, on one level, is a wonderful thing. Individuals should not be barred from pursuing
activities and goals merely because of sexual
preference. When I came to Georgetown, the
gays actively sought each other out. Now gay
people don’t feel the same need to cleave
to others of the same identity. Most consider
this a great gain—people do not have to limit
themselves to a certain social group solely
defined by their orientation. It is easy to conclude that we are well on our way towards the
liberal democratic dream—people are free to
choose the lifestyles they want, do the things
they want, and be with the people they want.
Mission accomplished.
But I wonder if something has been lost in
this process. Maybe in the course of joining the
rest of the campus and fully becoming Hoyas
we have discovered that the grass is not much
greener. Gays may be individually more integrated into campus life, but the gay “community” itself has become increasingly dispersed
and fragmented. In my view, we should stop,
take a look at what has happened over the past
three years, and evaluate where we are today.
ne thing I have increasingly noticed
O
over the years is that Georgetown is
an incredibly normative place. Students here
look alike, dress alike and act alike. People
who don’t fall into the mainstream—at the risk
of over-generalizing—are judged and stigmatized.
When I was abroad, a friend decided she
wanted to get a lip ring. Upon discussing it
with friends who were still back at Georgetown—who reminded her that when she got
back she would be “that girl”—she quickly recanted from the almost-faux pas.
Georgetown has a real lack of diversity, but
not (necessarily) along the lines of race, ethnicity, or orientation. Those problems could
be addressed structurally. Instead, the campus
culture itself is hostile to anyone who would
act differently.
This has at times taken on the extreme
dimension of hate crimes. Without underestimating the horrendous nature of these events,
I would say that in many ways such actions are
less important than the small-scale, quotidian bitchiness of much of the student body—
the snide comments, the cold shoulders, the
weird glances for those who are “different,”
and warmth and friendliness for those who
conform.
It’s amazing how many people from so
many different backgrounds can all look ex-
4
Photo cour tesy of GU Pride
STUDENT
ACTIVISTS,
seen here at the
National Equality
March, have won
important concessions
from the University.
actly the same. Polo shirts and boat shoes
know no color or creed. This is probably due to
a variety of factors, but among them is a lack of
imagination. When the average Georgetown
student wants to figure out what to do, they
don’t ponder what would make them happy, or
what seems exciting or aesthetically pleasing.
They just look around to see what everyone
else is doing.
Back in the day, when sexual orientation
necessarily meant that one wouldn’t fit into
the broader campus culture, a funny thing
happened. The gay community no longer felt
as much pressure to wear certain things, say
certain things, and act in certain ways. Since
we had already lost the game from the outset,
there was no point in trying to keep playing
it. And in hindsight, that was in many ways
a great good. We were freer to do what we
wanted, for no other reason than we wanted
to do it.
Ironically, now that gays are more “accepted,” there is an added expectation that we
will conform to all other aspects of Georgetown culture. We left the closet just to get in
line at Georgetown Cupcake. This is partially
the fault of gay rhetoric: “We’re just like you!”
“Our love is the same as yours!” “Gays are just
as a good of parents as straight people!”
Well, what if I don’t want to be just like
you? What if I would prefer to remain as I was
before, because you are boring, shallow, or
inane?
his is the larger problem with the asT
similationist approach. It necessarily
implies that intolerance—cruelly keeping peo-
ple from fully participating in the larger cultural life of whatever society—is the greatest evil,
because we are all “equal.” Well, what if tolerance (which is still undoubtedly necessary) is
not the only important quality in the world?
It turns out that being gay or lesbian (or bisexual, or transgender, or intersex, etc.) is not
that important of an identity category. We’re
really just bodies fucking other bodies. And
you can tolerate people all over the spectrum
of gender and sexuality, and still be an overall
bad person. The problem with Georgetown’s
Counterpoint
approach to gay issues is that it is rooted in the
assumption that gays want to be just like everyone else.
Notice how this implicitly avoids any sort of
self-reflection or criticism of ‘normal’ people.
Should gay people want to be like everyone
else? Now that it’s available, many gay people
have taken this route of “escape” and done exactly that—become just like everyone around
them. This is why equality is not, and never
can be, the goal. I don’t want to be equal to you.
I want to do as I please.
I fear that we missed a great opportunity
three years ago to make Georgetown a genuinely better place, instead of merely expanding
the reach of the dominant campus culture. We
didn’t make Georgetown any gayer. We’ve just
made the gays more Georgetown-y.
So how can we attempt to make up for
lost time? We have to change our mindset in
terms of the way diversity, and campus life in
general, operate. The end goal is not to give
others a chance to recreate themselves in our
image, but rather to encourage people to pursue a variety of activities, styles, and interests.
To do what they find genuinely pleasurable—
as problematic of a concept as that is—rather
than bowing to a herd instinct and simply doing what everyone else does.
Only when we value people because they
are deep, kind, bold, or interesting will we actually live in a diverse and improved campus.
We have to find non-mimetic ways of being on
the Hilltop. It is crucial to point out that these
problems are not institutional, meaning they
cannot be addressed by the staff and administration. They are student problems, caused
by us. If anyone will make them better, it will
be us. It is your (and my) responsibility. Until
such a time, we really have done the gay community—and the Georgetown community as a
whole­—no favors.
ON THE GROUND is a regular column
about life at Georgetown. Email editor@
counterpointmagazine.org to submit
your own, or comment on J.C.’s piece at
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG.
APRIL 2011
COMMENTARY
BY
GAVIN BADE
Regulation as social justice
How the EPA’s new rules will protect the lower class while cutting costs
SMOKE RISING
from a factory in
New Jersey. New
EPA standards would
regulate emissions
from industrial
boilers.
Photo used under Creative Commons from United Nations Photo
W
ith the discussion in Washington centered on budget cuts,
it’s easy to forget the flip side
of the libertarians’ coin: the costs of nonregulation. As the Environmental Protection Agency showed us late last month,
these costs are serious, but solvable with
flexibility and creativity.
On February 21, the EPA released longawaited adjustments to new regulations
on toxic pollutants—contaminants including, but not limited to, mercury, lead and
dioxins—emitted from industrial boilers
and incinerators. These new regulatory
guidelines represent a compromise between industry and government that is all
too rare in today’s political climate.
The choice to reduce the regulations’
cost by 50 percent was largely political,
coming off the back of an executive order in January requiring a review of environmental, health, financial and safety
regulations to ensure the rules were not
imposing too high a cost on American
business. However, after a voluntary comment period that allowed the EPA to evaluate feedback from industry representatives and the public, the agency found that
it could gain the same health benefits under the original guidelines while cutting
the cost of the regulations in half.
From an environmental standpoint,
this is perhaps not the ideal conclusion to
the regulatory saga that has been going on
since 2007. At that time, the EPA received
a court order mandating more stringent
regulation of lethal emissions. Considering the opposition from both parties in
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
Congress and the possible consequences in terms of lost jobs—some estimates
reached as high as 300,000—this outcome
is a meaningful victory for environmental
interests across the country. It shows that
when regulators are serious about protecting their citizens and flexible in their
approach, industry can be persuaded to
compromise and reject a fully anti-regulatory stance. Owners of industrial boilers are by no means thrilled with the new
regulations, but even they have welcomed
the compromise.
Based on the EPA’s estimates, the new
rules will result in $10 to $24 of savings
for every dollar spent on regulation. These
costs, which would have been transferred
to the public if the EPA had not stepped
in, represent a classic externality of the
industrial system. The organizations
producing the deadly pollution that has
harmed and killed Americans for decades
have not paid the cost of spewing the toxic
material into the atmosphere.
More often than not, the costs of these
externalities are borne by the neediest in
society—those who cannot afford move
away from the pollution. The added burden of industrial contaminants poses a
further obstacle to economic mobility in
our country. Put simply, it’s difficult to
move up the socioeconomic ladder if you
must deal with health issues and their associated costs due to the poisonous air
around you.
On a macroeconomic level, these new
regulations will save the heathcare system from additional costs and increase the
Counterpoint
quality of life for millions of Americans.
Through the new rules, the EPA believes it
can prevent up to 6,600 premature deaths
by 2014 and avert 310,000 sick days per
year, according to information provided by
the EPA’s Senior Press Officer Cathy Milbourn. It would cost society billions more
in healthcare costs and lost productivity
to maintain the status quo than it would
to implement the new regulations and
protect citizens from toxic air pollutants.
Despite this fact, regulations that protect
health and quality of life are adamantly
opposed by the “small government” voices
in Congress.
ith the EPA now taking steps to
W
curb toxic air emissions, unregulated greenhouse gases come to the
forefront as the most important case illustrating the costs of non-regulation. Unfortunately, the costs associated with climate change are likely to be more severe
than any other environmental problem
due to the global effects of the phenomenon.
The EPA has been moving to regulate
greenhouse gases in response to a court
order similar to the one that mandated a
review of boiler and incinerator regulations. However, this time it was the Supreme Court that compelled the agency
to take action. In the 2007 case Massachusetts v. EPA, the Bush administration argued against its responsibility to regulate
greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The administration was rebuked in a 5-4
decision, in which the court upheld the
5
COMMENTARY
agency’s responsibility under the Act to
decide whether greenhouse gases are detrimental to human health and to regulate
accordingly.
In December 2009, EPA administrator
Lisa Jackson and her agency determined
that these gases are harmful to humans and
planned to limit the sources of their emission. Defending her conclusion last month
in front of a hostile House Energy and Commerce Committee, she said, “Scientists at
the thirteen federal agencies that make up
the US Global Change Research Program
have reported that climate change, due
primarily to human-induced emissions of
heat-trapping gases, poses significant risks
to the well-being of the American public.”
These dangers include rising sea levels
that threaten coastal American communities, and a higher incidence of extreme
weather events spanning from severe
drought, to hurricanes, blizzards and flooding. Warmer average temperatures will
encourage the spread of disease-causing
pathogens and destructive invasive species
usually killed off by colder weather. All citizens will experience higher food prices as
the reliability and yield of yearly harvests
decreases. Furthermore, countless recreation and leisure locations will be lost to
ecological destruction. These effects will
be especially harmful in large coastal cities and surrounding areas—the very communities experiencing the greatest population growth in the country today.
Yet, Republicans on the committee denied the legality and practicality of regulating carbon emissions. Representative
John Sullivan (R-OK) contended, “This
hearing is not about science. It’s about the
destructive economic impacts of the EPA
trying to use the Clean Air Act for something it was never designed to do: regulate
greenhouse gases.”
Regrettably, Representative Sullivan
completely ignored the Supreme Court’s
Initial estimate of
compliance cost
($420,000)
Revised cost of
compliance after public
input ($2,200)
0
100,000
Apart from the bill’s brainless ignorance
of accepted climate science, it would also
cost the American public trillions of dollars
more than the common-sense regulation
of greenhouse gases that the EPA is trying
to instate. In the same statement before
the Energy and Commerce Committee,
Ms. Jackson went on to say that by 2020,
the benefits of the Clean Air Act, begun in
1990, “are projected to exceed the costs by
a factor of more than 30 to 1.” It’s painfully
obvious that allowing the EPA to do its job
would provide substantially greater benefits to society than the costs incurred.
What’s more, the EPA’s regulations have
been exceedingly accommodating to business, to a greater extent than many environmentalists can comfortably stomach. In
Representative Fred Upton (R-MI),
Chairman of the Energy and Commerce
Committe, has proposed a bill that, in its
own words, would “repeal” the scientific
findings on climate change.
ruling and its implications. According to
the Supreme Court, the Clean Air Act is
intended to regulate air pollution harmful
to human health. The EPA, following the
recommendations of the nation’s leading
scientific societies and federal agencies,
determined that greenhouse gases fit the
mold of harmful pollution. Therefore, the
agency is compelled to regulate greenhouse gases to protect citizens’ health and
quality of life. Such action would be, by
definition, exactly what the Clean Air Act
is supposed to do.
Setting aside questions of legality, the
EPA’s responsible and obvious finding on
greenhouse gases is also under attack
from proposed legislation in Congress.
Representative Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has proposed a bill that, in its own
words, would “repeal” the scientific findings on climate change.
6
the words of Ms. Jackson, “Although the
EPA has not yet published proposed standards [for greenhouse gases], I plan to base
them on commercially available technologies with proven track records. The standards will reflect careful consideration of
costs and incorporate as much compliance
flexibility as possible.”
As displayed in the EPA’s compromise
over toxic emissions, the agency is interested not only in protecting human health
and well-being, but also in protecting businesses from prohibitive costs and job losses as well. Both their rhetoric and their actions have backed up this stance.
nfortunately, none of these conU
cerns has been enough for conservatives in Congress. They have continued
to ignore the clear costs of non-regulation
and wage war on the EPA—even as the
agency is lenient on businesses that emit
Counterpoint
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
Graph by Eric Pilch
A RADICAL SHIFT in compliance costs due to small
adjustments in the regulations allowed the EPA to achieve
nearly the same environmental benefits. A similar proccess
could be applied to carbon emissions standards.
pollutants en masse. Why? The answer is
simple. Those affected most by the consequences of non-regulation are ill equipped
to escape them.
These aren’t the voters who put Republicans back in control of the House last year,
and the members of Congress know it. As
with lethal emissions of lead and mercury,
the wealthy are able to escape the impact
of global climate change, both in America
and abroad. The middle and lower classes
will not be so lucky. These constituencies
don’t have the financial clout that would allow them to buy their way into government
protection from externalities, like large
business interests buy their way out of being responsible for them. And unless emissions are regulated, the poor will suffer
from health and environmental problems
they did very little to produce themselves.
There is no better example of a time
when the government is obligated to step
in on behalf of its citizens. Conservatives
would abdicate this responsibility to satiate
big business interests. It has been shown
time and time again through the legal and
legislative wrangling over the proposed
regulations that Republicans would prefer
to spare their base and corporate donors of
a small increase in environmental regulation, rather than save all of society billions
of dollars, prevent countless deaths due to
environmental contaminants, and improve
the health and well-being of the entire
populace.
The majority of the public has little
recourse from the effects of industrial
contaminants and greenhouse gasses
in the face of government inaction. The
high minded in government are doing
their best to protect the public. Let’s hope
these legislators and officials choose to do
right by all their citizens and recognize
the overwhelming costs of environmental
non-regulation.
APRIL 2011
COMMENTARY
BY
KARA BRANDEISKY
A
The boys are alright
Increasing hysterics over the plight of the modern man
ctress Katherine Heigl is making a
career out of playing every good girl’s
worst nightmare: the successful woman who cannot find a decent man.
First, in “Knocked Up,” she played an entertainment news reporter, accidentally pregnant
with Ben’s (Seth Rogen) child after a drunken
one-night stand. Ben lives with his band of
pothead friends who are all unemployed with
plans to start a soft porn aggregation website.
The movie poster features Rogen looking disheveled and bewildered, with the question
across the top: “What if this guy got you pregnant?”
After that film came “The Ugly Truth,” in
which bad-boy male chauvinist television host
Mike (Gerard Butler) teaches television producer Abby (Katherine Heigl) the “ugly truth”
about what men really want—only to fall in
love with her himself.
In “Life as We Know It,” after a disastrous
first date, Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Eric
(Josh Duhamel) are given shared custody of a
baby when their friends die in a car crash. The
poster features Heigl chasing after the baby—
and after Duhamel, who walks by in his underwear, taking a swig of beer.
It’s the same story, repackaged again and
again. Outrageously beautiful but neurotic
woman meets immature, selfish man-boy.
Through a sufficient amount of nagging and
accidental charm, the man falls in love with
her, gives up his boyish ways, and gets dragged
across the finish line into adulthood and domesticity.
Director Tom Dey was even less subtle in
“Failure to Launch.” Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) needs his parents to actually hire
Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker) to pretend to date
him, help him develop a sense of independence, and finally “launch” him into the real
world, at 35 years old. You can guess how the
story ends.
The movies may be trite, but the media is
saturated with their messages. And journalists have taken notice.
“Where have all the good men gone?” Kay
S. Hymowitz recently asked in the Wall Street
Journal, citing “Knocked Up” as evidence
one needs them anyway. There’s nothing they
have to do. They might as well just have another beer.”
And we’ve always heard that feminists
hate men.
t’s time to give men some credit. Men do
I
face serious, and different, problems in
the modern age. But most of them are eco-
nomic.
More 20-somethings—men and women—
are moving back in with their parents. But
they aren’t doing it because it’s the overwhelmingly cool thing to do. They’re doing it
because we’re coming out of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
More men than women have lost their jobs
during the economic crisis. But the problem
isn’t successful women taking jobs away from
slacker men. It is an increasingly knowledgebased economy, which disadvantages traditionally male-dominated fields like manufacturing, construction, and similar jobs that
emphasize strenuous manual labor.
Meanwhile, according to the recent
“Women in America” White House report,
women as a group are still earning 75 cents to
every man’s dollar. More women may graduate from college—the male-female ratio of
college graduates is now 43 to 57 percent—
but women still fail to advance to the highest
rungs of most career ladders at proportionate
rates. Now, attacks on teachers’ unions overwhelmingly affect women, who account for
70 percent of the education sector.
In that sense, many of the problems facing
20-something men are economic, and their
female counterparts are struggling with the
same issues, in different ways. Our generation
simply won’t have the same job security as
our parents. Few workers will have generous
pensions. We will change jobs, and careers,
with more frequency. The privileged among
us will have to take more unpaid internships.
The less-privileged will reel from the effects
of low-skill jobs shipped overseas. The best
solution is to provide all youth with a path to
higher education, which will be the ticket to
success in our knowledge-based economy.
“Gender wars” assume that everything is a zero-sum
game—if women are winning, men must be losing.
that young men are discouraged from taking responsibility. (Hymowitz, a conservative
writer, was promoting her subtly-titled new
book: “Manning Up: How the Rise of Women
Has Turned Men Into Boys.”) Reihan Salam
dubbed the economic crisis a “he-cession” in
Foreign Policy. The Atlantic was more ominous: It is, actually, “The End of Men.”
“Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single
young man can live in pig heaven—and often
does,” Hymowitz concluded. “Women put up
with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband
and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get
the DNA without the troublesome man. But
these rational choices on the part of women
only serve to legitimize men’s attachment to
the sand box. Why should they grow up? No
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
Since the 1970’s, wages haven’t been rising
with productivity, so many families need two
incomes just to make ends meet. Our generation couldn’t settle down and start families in
our early 20s, even if we wanted to—we just
can’t afford it.
onservatives like Hymowitz will argue
C
that feminism has just gone too far.
She laments that we’ve lost the “life script”
that tells us what to do at each point in our
development.
“For women, the central task usually involved the day-to-day rearing of the next generation; for men, it involved protecting and
providing for their wives and children,” Hymowitz writes in the Wall Street Journal. “If
you followed the script, you became an adult,
a temporary custodian of the social order until your own old age and demise.”
Counterpoint
Hymowitz frets that the average age of
marriage is rising, seeing this as a sign that
men are delaying family and responsibility.
If only we found the lost script, settled down,
and forced men to assume their traditional
responsibilities, then everything would be
fine, Hymowitz says. This is, not coincidentally, how the man-boy problem is solved in
Hollywood.
But the way Hymowitz uses it, “script” is a
nice euphemism for “rigidly-policed gender
roles.” There’s a reason we threw out the old
script.
Today, many people wait longer to receive
married because they want to get an education, start a career and achieve some level of
economic stability before they assume the responsibilities that come with family life. People who wait longer to get married are less
likely to get divorced. The Pew Research Center found that states with a high percentage
of women married before 24 have an aboveaverage divorce rate. Well-educated parents
are also more likely to raise children who
succeed in school.
Later marriages mean that both men and
women have the freedom to explore their
interests, talents and identity before committing to marriage. Hymowitz is mistaken to see
this as a sign of immaturity.
ooking at it another way, today’s
L
comedies celebrate the freedom of
new young adulthood. The male characters
could be much less exaggerated, and young
men today do lack respectable Hollywood
role models with substantive goals. But to a
certain extent, today’s male characters are
realistically flawed, and their fears reflect
the anxieties of a rapidly changing age. Men
in comedies are exploring their bonds with
each other, their sense of purpose, and their
role in a world that does not define their
role for them. That’s all positive.
What we do need are more dynamic female characters. In too many movies today,
women are only plot devices. Male characters are allowed to be lost and confused,
only to slowly find their way. Female characters too often have a singular goal: find
a man. In between finding and keeping a
man, women are allowed to dress up and
get drunk for the purpose of entertaining
men. This relentless search for male attention is falsely sold as female empowerment.
Instead, we need more female characters
with substantive, independent goals that
have nothing to do with finding a husband.
We need a culture that gives women the
license to do the same identity-searching
men are allowed.
Finally, if we actually value families,
we’ll stop portraying marriage as an institution that fun-loving man-boys are tricked
into by their nagging girlfriends. We will
stop sending messages to young men that
it’s “emasculating” to stay home with children or be involved in their lives.
“Gender wars” assume that everything is
a zero-sum game—if women are winning,
men must be losing. When it comes to our
marriages and our families, we should be
working together. That doesn’t require returning to the old script, where men and
women were forced into rigid gender roles
before they were ready. But directors in
Hollywood could consider rewriting some
of their scripts, which sell both men and
women far too short.
7
COMMENTARY
BY
JOHN FLANAGAN
An accident of history
Washington D.C. disenfranchisement through the ages
D
riving along Pennsylvania Avenue,
“America’s Main Street,” is a lesson
in the development of the world’s
oldest constitutional republic. The White
House and Capitol, which bookend this grand
boulevard, showcase the struggle of checks
and balances. However, it’s hard to miss the
ominous ticker that stands close to the White
House. Every day, it counts up dollar-by-dollar
the taxes D.C. residents have paid without a
vote in Congress.
Almost any American can tell you that the
central drama of the War of Independence
centered around the idea that the British imposed “taxation without representation” on
North American colonies. But in a move that
would become one of the great ironies of the
American Revolution, the first U.S. Congress
created a federal district whose residents
would suffer just the same fate. The U.S. constitution calls for “representatives of the various states” in Congress, but D.C. was expressly
created independent of the 13 states. Also, the
constitution gives Congress complete authority over the federal district, which was just
the kind of government the American patriots
fought to avoid.
The creation of this disenfranchised District of Columbia was an accident of history,
a convergence of the interests between a skittish federal government concerned for its safety and a reticent South that wanted a capital
close to its sphere of influence. There are ways
to remedy this inconsistency, but there are no
simple fixes to a problem that is more than 200
years in the making.
n June 20, 1783, nearly 400 ContinenO
tal Army soldiers protested at Independence Hall, then the seat of Congress, over
unpaid wages for service in the Revolutionary
War. At the time, the national government had
no standing army of its own under the Articles
of Confederation. So when the mutineers arrived in Philadelphia, Congress had to beg the
government of Pennsylvania for protection.
The national legislature was forced to decamp
to Princeton, New Jersey. After a shameful exile, Congress formed a committee to study the
idea of creating a “federal town” to secure its
own safety.
The committee recommended the creation
of a district over which Congress would have
exclusive jurisdiction. The proposal made its
way into the U.S. Constitution as Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, also known as the District
Clause. The measure, which comes near the
end of a long list of delegated federal powers, calls for Congress “to exercise exclusive
Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such
District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as
may, by Cession of Particular States, and the
Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of
the Government of the United States.”
James Madison defended the District
Clause in Federalist No. 48 by cautioning that
“a dependence … on the State comprehend-
“[Some fear that] senators elected from the District may
be too liberal, too urban, too black, or too Democratic.”
TED KENNEDY
ing the seat of Government for protection in
this exercise of their duty, might bring on the
national councils an imputation of awe or influence.” He also addressed Pendleton’s worry
that future citizens of the federal district would
be disenfranchised by arguing that they would
retain voting rights in the ceding states. In
concluding, Madison promises, “a municipal
Legislature for local purposes, derived from
their own suffrages, will of course be allowed
them.”
As an extra safeguard, Alexander Hamilton, one of the delegates of the original Constitutional Convention, added an amendment
guaranteeing that the residents of the new
federal district would temporarily retain their
old state citizenships for the purposes of voting, to gain full representation later. However,
this language never made it into the final draft.
Sure enough, when the District of Columbia
was formally organized under the Organic Act
of 1801, the residents of D.C., who had been
previously represented by congressmen from
Maryland and Virginia, formally lost congressional representation.
THE TICKING
METER outside
Washington D.C. City
Hall tracks federal
taxes paid by District
residents.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Travlr
8
In 1800, D.C. had only 8,144 residents. By
1870, the population had grown to 131,700.
The Civil War and the resulting increase in
federal power raised the profile of the District
of Columbia and made a more modern and
efficient government necessary. The Organic
Act of 1871, which created a single government for the District, called for a presidentially
appointed governor and a bicameral legislature with local suffrage in the lower house and
presidential appointees in the upper house.
D.C. also had a non-voting delegate to Congress during this period.
But when D.C.’s second governor, “Boss”
Andrew Shepherd, went on a financially ruinous spending spree, Congress abolished this
form of government. In the place of an elected legislature and congressional delegate,
Counterpoint
the president would appoint a three-member
Board of Commissioners. But the triumvirate
that would rule Washington for almost a century to follow was not accountable to the people it served. Its only distributional requirement was that the Board be composed of one
Democrat, one Republican, and one engineer
of no specified party.
While the Board was theoretically the local
government of D.C., Congress regularly interfered with D.C. affairs through the District
of Columbia committees in each chamber.
Only the most marginal congressmen were
appointed to what was viewed as an undistinguished committee. This attracted fringe elements from both parties, such as Chairman
John McMillan (D-SC), a staunch segregationist who would rule the city through the 1960’s
and early 1970’s.
But greater sovereignty for the District
would only come when D.C. residents actively
campaigned in McMillan’s district to have him
ousted from the head of the D.C. House Committee. After that, the D.C. Home Rule Charter
sailed through Congress and was signed by the
President in 1973. In 1974, the charter was put
to the citizens of D.C. and overwhelmingly approved.
However, the Home Rule charter provided
neither voting representation in Congress, nor
full sovereignty for the District of Columbia.
Congress still has the privilege of vetoing any
law the local government may propose, and
D.C. only sends a nonvoting delegate to Congress.
Efforts to expand D.C.’s voting rights came
in 1978 with an amendment that would give
the federal district representation as if it were
a state. However, the amendment failed to be
ratified by the requisite number of states prior
to its expiration in 1985. Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who co-sponsored the
amendment, famously claimed that opposition
“has seemed to arise from ... the fear that senators elected from the District may be too liberal, too urban, too black, or too Democratic.”
then, D.C. has continued to lack votSince
ing representation in Congress and has
APRIL 2011
COMMENTARY
1791
2009
1873
ALEXANDER
SHEPHARD,
second governor
of the District of
Columbia, also
known as the
father of modern
Washington. He
bankrupted the city.
D.C. DELEGATE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON
THE FOUNDER’S ORIGINAL PLAN for the federal
joins Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Vote in lobbying
Congress for a vote.
city, as devised by Pierre Charles L’Enfant.
Photos, from left, used under Wikipedia Commons from UpstateNYer, under Wikipedia Commons from Tneely, and under Creative Commons from KClvey
also suffered painful vacillations in its sovereignty. Throughout the 1990’s, Republicans refused to allow the District to pass progressive
legislation that would have legalized domestic
partnerships and medicinal marijuana. Also,
from 1995 to 2001, a budget crisis prompted
Congress to override the District’s home rule
and require all laws to be submitted to a Congressionally-approved Budget and Control
Board. Congress can similarly alter the terms
of D.C.’s nominal sovereignty at any time.
While 59 percent of D.C.’s revenue came
from local taxes in 2001, monies collected by
the D.C. government are treated as federal
taxes and must be appropriated to the District
by an act of Congress. Congressional Republicans, in particular, have used this requirement
as an opportunity to pass so-called “budget riders” that stipulate how D.C. may spend its own
revenue.
The most recent batch of budget riders came
with the Republican Revolution of 1996, when
House Republicans managed to place restrictions preventing the implementation of D.C.’s
medical marijuana, domestic partnership, and
here are four potential remedies for
T
D.C.’s current voting rights and sovereignty situation. D.C. could be returned to
Maryland, Congress could give D.C. the right
to vote by legislative initiative, the non-federal portion of D.C. could be admitted as a state,
or a constitutional amendment could grant
D.C. residents additional rights without altering its status as a federal territory.
In 1847, frustrated by a lack of development on its side of the Potomac, the portion
of the District of Columbia ceded by Virginia
successfully petitioned to be returned to that
state. What’s left of D.C. is what was ceded
by Maryland. Becoming a part of Maryland
would give D.C. a vote in both houses of Congress, but the plan has only ever enjoyed limited debate in Congress and neither Maryland
nor D.C. voters support the measure.
Recent activism has centered on a legislative path to equal representation. In 2007,
Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) and Delegate Eleanor
Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act, which
would give D.C. a single vote in the House of
But the triumvirate that would rule Washington
for almost a century to follow was not
accountable to the people it served.
needle exchange programs. Also, Congress repeatedly threatened to weaken D.C.’s gun laws
before D.C. v. Heller struck them down, and
tried to abrogate the District’s traditionally liberal contraception and abortion laws.
This subversion of the democratic voice of
the people is unfair and, in the case of limiting
anti-HIV initiatives such as needle exchanges,
leads to severe consequences. When Democrats returned to the majority in the House in
2006, they repealed almost all of these riders,
but there is nothing to prevent the new Republican majority from bringing back these undemocratic measures.
Although it is apparently not so obvious for
lawmakers, Americans who are informed on
the issue demand that D.C.’s unjust situation
be remedied. In 2005, D.C. Vote, an organization that pushes for D.C. voting rights in Congress, conducted a poll of around 1,000 adults
from around the country. Only 18 percent correctly identified that D.C. does not have full
voting rights in Congress, but 82 percent of
those polled supported equal voting rights in
the House and Senate.
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
Representatives. However, last-minute Republican amendments that threatened to abrogate D.C. gun laws caused the bill to die in
the House.
Even if the measure had passed, there
are serious questions as to its constitutionality. On one hand, the Constitution only calls
for the states to be represented in Congress.
Others argue that the District Clause gives
Congress the ability to extend representation
to D.C.. In National Mutual Insurance v. Tidewater (1949), Congress ruled that the District
Clause allowed Congress to extend state-like
privileges to D.C. in entering lawsuits against
parties from different jurisdictions, even
though the Constitution only establishes this
right for states.
In the same manner, Senator Orrin Hatch
(R-UT) argues that Congress may extend voting rights to D.C. in the House of Representatives. However, incongruously, Hatch argues
against representation in the Senate on the
grounds that that the body was explicitly created to represent states. This bizarre reasoning seems disingenuous when one learns that
Counterpoint
Utah, Hatch’s home state, would have gained
a House seat as a result of the DCVRA, in a
trade meant to placate Republicans.
In the last decade, proposals for D.C. statehood have gained traction among local activists. All the candidates at a recent D.C. Council election forum supported the idea, and 59
percent of D.C. residents who participated
in a recent Washington Post poll supported
statehood. Most proposals call for a “rump”
federal district around the White House and
Capitol Complex, while the rest of D.C. would
be admitted as the state of New Columbia.
This would remedy D.C.’s voting rights problems by giving the District two Senators and
a Representative in Congress. However, some
believe Maryland would have to approve this
decision because it ceded the land for D.C. It
is unlikely that Republicans would get behind
a proposal that would give solidly Democratic
D.C. two votes in the Senate.
The surest road to representation is a Constitutional Amendment that would give D.C.
voting rights or would permanently alter its
status, but this was unsuccessful in the 1980’s
when it was first proposed. A more concerted
effort on D.C.’s part might make the difference. Unfortunately, Congress also bars the
D.C. government from spending money to
advocate for D.C. voting rights or home rule.
he road ahead for D.C. voting rights
T
is uncertain. A constitutional amendment and an act of Congress that would give
D.C. equal voting rights have both failed, and
there is no indication that Republicans will allow New Columbia to become the 51st state
any time soon. That said, D.C. residents have
shown that they can overcome great hurdles.
The fight for the present Home Rule Charter
butted up against the likes of segregationist
John McMillan. Home rule activists succeeded by going into his district and campaigning
for their rights.
Full District of Columbia voting rights and
increased home rule are clearly the best possible remedies to the District’s unjust situation. However, the poisonous rhetoric and
deal-making on Capitol Hill make it difficult
for politicians to arrive at this obvious conclusion. Activists must therefore take the viable
proposals of statehood and constitutional enfranchisement directly to the American people. Once they have been made aware of the
situation, it is hard to imagine that a people
raised on the legend of “taxation without representation” will do anything but oblige D.C.’s
request.
9
COMMENTARY
BY
RACHEL CALVERT
The power of the purse
How culture wars have morphed into an assault on women’s health
A
fter a slew of new Republicans toted
their socially conservative agendas
to Washington last November, the
House has become the legislative outlet for
right-wing opposition to women’s reproductive rights.
The pro-life movement’s assailments on
abortion rights have often had far-reaching
effects for basic reproductive health services.
And in the current Congressional session,
we’re witnessing this exact consequence.
While these efforts demonstrate a patent disregard for the reproductive health and rights
of all women, the provisions being pushed
through the House are most detrimental to
lower-income women and display a shocking
lack of regard for their well-being.
The opposition to women’s reproductive
rights specifically targets Planned Parenthood,
a nonprofit organization that provides family
planning services and education. Many of the
measures also broadly attack women’s rights
by imposing intolerable limits on the rights established by Roe v. Wade in 1973.
efore Roe, abortions were only legal in a
B
handful of states. Elsewhere, the highly
dangerous back-alley abortion was one of the
few options for women who couldn’t afford to
travel to another state or obtain a safer—but
still illegal—underground abortion. By legalizing the practice, Roe moved the procedure
from the dangerous realm of back-alley dealings to sterile operating rooms. Self-induced
These costs range from $350-$650 at an abortion clinic to $500-$700 at a physician’s office.
Like most medical procedures, abortions are
much more difficult to secure without insurance. For many Americans, these funding
limitations would eliminate the pragmatic
effects of the right to choose, rendering it a
right in name only.
eyond their disregard for women’s conB
stitutionally-protected right to choose,
current Congressional efforts also display an
alarming lack of concern for women’s overall
health.
H.R. 358, the “Protect Life Act,” features
a conscience clause that would allow public hospitals to deny a woman the right to an
abortion even in cases of abuse and in highrisk pregnancies when the woman’s life is at
stake. This legislation reflects twisted priorities that value the right of the unborn over
that of the already living. Under this bill, it
would not be unfathomable for a pregnant
woman to die due to a physician’s unwillingness to perform a life-saving procedure.
In another effort to eliminate reproductive
health resources that overwhelmingly benefit
low-income women, the House’s 2011 budget
proposal would cut the $317 million allocation to Title X. This legislation is the only the
only federal funding dedicated to family planning and was first signed into law by Richard
Nixon as part of the Public Health Service Act
of 1970.
Terminating Title X’s funding would do little
to prevent abortions, but it would encourage
unintended pregnancies by limiting the
availability of birth control.
abortions—such as the infamous coat hanger
procedure—were largely replaced by professional medical operations. Doctors could then
provide regular post-op care.
Since 1973, however, social conservatives
have attempted to stymie the right to choose
that was granted by Roe, in many cases seeking to impose such stringent restrictions as
to nearly eliminate it. Recent attempts to obstruct this right would disproportionately affect low-income women.
H.R. 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” would make permanent the provisions of the Hyde Amendment, which has
been routinely attached as a rider to the federal budget since 1976, and which bars federal funding of abortions except in cases of
rape and incest.
The amendment is most inimical to lowerincome women who rely on Medicaid, as well
as Native Americans and military women who
are covered by federal health care. The provision would also render abortion less accessible
for privately insured women, as it would impose tax penalties on anyone under a private
insurance plan that covers abortion services.
Without insurance, the cost of an abortion
depends on factors like length of pregnancy,
health of the mother, and any complications.
10
Because of the Hyde Amendment, no Title X funding is used for abortion services.
Rather, the program funds family planning
services, including contraception and associated counseling. Any private organization
that receives Title X funding must also offer
a range of sexual and reproductive health
services that include cancer, STI, and HIV/
AIDS screenings; breast and pelvic exams;
and testing for diabetes, high blood pressure,
and anemia.
The beneficiaries of these services are
generally low-income, young, or uninsured,
and most have never had a child. Of the
women served by Title X-supported clinics,
60 percent live below poverty level, while
only 21 percent are covered by Medicaid.
Title X helps fill the coverage gap created by
Medicaid’s rigid requirements and provides
an invaluable social safety net that allows
millions of women to prevent unintended
pregnancies.
While Title X’s history is littered with attempts to limit its scope, no previous Congress has dared to completely eliminate the
program’s funding, which includes a $75
million allocation to Planned Parenthood.
Conservatives have also rallied behind
the Pence Amendment, which would termi-
Counterpoint
nate an additional annual allocation of $330
million to Planned Parenthood and would
bar the organization from receiving any federal funds in the future. By voting to erase
Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, conservatives in Congress have demonstrated
that their moral objections to abortion rights
extend to the crippling of reproductive
health services that overwhelmingly serve
low-income women.
Planned Parenthood provides women
access to education and affordable birth
control in addition to abortion services. Although abortions account for only 3 percent
of Planned Parenthood’s annual budget, the
organization’s provision of the procedure
puts the group at odds with pro-life politicians.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood estimates that 1 in 4 U.S. women receive health
care from the organization at some point in
their lives. Many of their patrons are young
or uninsured, and Planned Parenthood provides a myriad of health services, including
cancer screenings, HIV/AIDS and STI tests,
and mammograms. In many cases, these
clinics offer the only accessible resources for
women who cannot afford more expensive
alternatives at private hospitals.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, has decried the House’s budget proposal and the
Pence Amendment as “the most dangerous
legislative assault on women’s health in
Planned Parenthood’s 95-year history.” The
women who will feel the brunt of this assault
are the low-income women who comprise
the vast majority of Title X’s beneficiaries.
hose who oppose awarding federal
T
funds to private organizations argue
that these dollars free up private funds that
will then be used for abortions. This convoluted relationship is tenuous at best and
over-represents the amount of private funding that is actually used for abortion services.
Terminating Title X’s funding would do
little to prevent abortions. Rather, it would
encourage unintended pregnancies by limiting the availability of birth control and education. The Guttmacher Institute estimated
that, in the absence of 2008 Title X funding,
there would have been a third more unintended pregnancies and abortions. Preventing these unintended pregnancies saved
taxpayers $3.4 billion in 2008—$3.74 for every dollar spend on contraceptive care. By
defunding Title X, conservative Republicans
will not accomplish their goal of limiting
abortions. Instead, they are placing potentially lifesaving reproductive health services
out of grasp for those who are not covered by
private health insurance or Medicaid.
The right’s opposition to abortion rights
extends from contentious funding cuts to perennial efforts to limit abortion access out of
existence. While efforts to extend these limitations have been ongoing since 1973, the
legislative proposals during the current Congressional session display an unprecedented
lack of regard for the health of women and
their Constitutionally-protected right to
choose in favor of dangerous ideology.
APRIL 2011
COMMENTARY
BY
ETHAN CHESS
Universal healthcare and social freedom
A Canadian’s perspective on the political philosophy driving the American healthcare debate
TOMMY
DOUGLAS,
Photo used under Wikipedia Commons from Samuell
A
s a Canadian, observing the healthcare
debate that took place in the United
States over the past two years has been
fascinating. Like nearly everyone of my generation, I have never paid for medical treatment in
my life. My parents have never been concerned
about cutting back on household expenses or
cancelling vacations due to a medical procedure. Whenever the dinner table conversation
turns to someone’s visit to a doctor or recent
surgery, any good Canadian will invariably say,
“I’m so thankful to live in this country where
medical care is free.” Yet, for the first time last
week, I received a bill for medical services—a
strange experience for someone unaccustomed
to this practice.
Canada is often called the “51st state,” and
in many respects, this is accurate. However,
attitudes toward healthcare seem to place the
two neighbors oceans apart. When comparing
healthcare systems, the numbers don’t lie. Nations with public systems perform better and
offer a more substantial return for their taxpayers’ investment. This begs the question: what is
holding back the wealthiest and most advanced
society on the planet from making the change
that so many other nations have carried out so
successfully?
The fundamental problem is one of political
culture. Both the failure and success of universal health care reform in the U.S. and Canada
is due to subtle but important differences in the
way each society perceives the role of the state.
o understand the differences in the pubT
lic discourse, it’s important to look at the
different ways the two counties arrived at their
present systems of medical care. In Canada, a
Baptist minister named Tommy Douglas introduced the concept of “socialized medicine.”
Douglas became the Premier of the agricultural
province of Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan politics in the 1950’s was dominated by the tradition of agrarian social populism—a powerful
political movement at the time. Against staunch
opposition from the medical community, Douglas passed legislation creating the first public,
single-payer healthcare system of any province
in Canada.
After this regional success, the former
preacher began making his way across the
country advocating for socialized medicine on
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
a national scale. Prime Minister Lester Pearson
allied quickly with Douglas, and together they
pushed the Medical Care Act through Parliament in 1966. Only 18 years later in 1984, Parliament unanimously made any form of private
health care illegal in the Canada Health Act,
which remains the major framework for Canada’s socialized system today.
Comparatively speaking, many of the arguments that defined the healthcare debates in
1960’s Canada and late-2000’s America were
the same. Taxes, doctors’ pay, and quality of
coverage were all discussed in both national
debates. However, what obstructed debate and
what will continue to hinder reform efforts in
America is the more prevalent focus on bedrock issues.
In the United States the debate is, regrettably, no longer about patient care or social wellbeing. Instead, the conversation is focused on
buzzwords like “freedom,” “individualism,” and
“socialism.” Conservatives in the United States
have been able to frame the debate in terms of
issues and ideas that are very powerful in the
minds of American citizens. Often during the
healthcare debate we heard Sarah Palin speak
of “death panels” and argue that the President
wanted to “take away our freedom” with socialized medicine.
As a Canadian, it is hard for me to believe
that constant insurance company involvement
in the healthcare sector provides a deeper and
truer “freedom” than the American system—
where corporations seek to prevent patients
from receiving care whenever possible. It is a
great tragedy that the conservatives have managed to appropriate “freedom” as their turf in
this debate, because the status quo is hardly a
reflection of the term.
or Canadians, these kinds of ideas don’t
F
bring us to our feet in the same way they
do for Americans. The nation wasn’t borne out
of bloody struggles like to the one that forged the
modern American identity firmly on the side of
individualism.
Canadian political scientist Gad Horowtiz
had long argued that Canada retained a streak of
classical British Toryism. Toryism as an ideology
stresses the communal approach to governance,
and stands in opposition to classical liberalism. As a result, social democracy found fertile
Counterpoint
the father of
Canadian universal
healthcare, speaks to
servicemembers.
ground in Canada, where many of the elite trace
their roots back to the Tory loyalist migrations of
the American Revolution. Horowitz says, “That
Tory touch was the philosophic seed that permitted Canadian socialism to sprout.”
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—our Bill of Rights—aligns perfectly with
this explanation for Canadian receptiveness to
social programs. The Charter calls for “Liberty,
Order, and Good Government.” It is significant
that two-thirds of the triad is devoted to the
pragmatic notions of a well-regulated state. The
Canadian version of a pithy triad is clearly different from the American one. It points firmly
towards a society that values pragmatism and
sound governance above the ideals of classical
liberalism that are so prominent in the American political sphere.
After the long and drawn out debate that has
stretched on in various forms for decades, the
frustrated advocates for universal healthcare
are certainly asking what can be done to realize
their dream. Although political culture changes
very slowly, the task is not insurmountable.
Liberals to need focus less on statistics and
complex arguments, and frame the debate in a
different way. Anyone who glances at the numbers can see that a single-payer system offers
taxpayers superior returns and maximizes social benefit. Progressives must do a better job
making the case that a single-payer healthcare
system is the mark of a modern and wealthy
society, and is fundamentally compatible with
American values. This latter point is demonstrated by the fact that public support for America’s truly socialized programs, Medicare and
Medicaid, remains sky high.
Part of this process involves progressives
working to redefine “freedom” and change the
way it is currently used in the political lexicon.
“Freedom” from insurance networks would offer every citizen the ability to choose the physician they want.
For Canadians, universal healthcare is an
important part of our social freedom. To become a reality in the United States, liberals
and progressives must change their messaging
and firmly root their argument in the values all
Americans cherish.
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Email EDITOR@COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG.
11
FEATURE
COLE STANGLER
Building an alternative
The Latin American Board at
Georgetown and abroad
T
here are three natural states in Latin
America and the Caribbean, according to a promotional video made in
2007 for Georgetown’s Global Competitiveness Leadership Program.
The first of them is the mythical “El Dorado,”
a female voice says in Spanish, as the video
shows stunning images of forests, lakes, and
beaches. Next comes a second state, characterized by the “vendors of dreams,” who use the
“populist” promise of El Dorado to sustain their
power.
A series of images and videos glide across the
screen: Bolivian President Evo Morales, former
Cuban President Fidel Castro, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and ex-Argentine President
Nestor Kirchner. El Dorado, and its “promises of
a better tomorrow” have not yet arrived from the
politicians who promise it.
The music reaches a crescendo before we
are introduced to the final natural state: the “desperation of the people.”
The video explains that in this state there is
“chaos” and “the ideologization of the region.”
An image shows indigenous activists carrying a
banner asking for “land and liberty.” The people
are impoverished; there is unemployment, illiteracy, and infant mortality. Democracies are unstable. Citizens lack faith in the political system.
Yet, there is still hope that the people will “wake
up.” It’s only a matter of unleashing their ambition.
That’s where Georgetown comes in. With
White-Gravenor Hall in the background, former
Spanish President José María Aznar appears on
screen to tell us there are new leaders who can
solve these monumental problems—and the
Latin American Board’s Global Competitiveness
Leadership Program is here to train them.
The video’s abridged narrative of Latin
American history appears to reduce the region’s
immense structural problems to a singular failure to embrace the free market. It is a vision
for development and governance that has the
institutional support of Georgetown University’s
Latin American Board, an organization founded
in 2006 and chaired by Aznar.
Like many other business schools across the
country, the McDonough School of Business
hosts certificate programs in addition to its more
intensive degree programs. But under Aznar’s
watch, Georgetown’s Latin American Board
has been marked by an ideological slant in its
operations and has generated an active alumni
network, which makes it unlike any other certificate-granting program at the school.
12
he Board’s main activity
T
is the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program, which
brings 35 to 40 students from Spain,
Portugal and Latin America to Georgetown for a four-month certificate program
in “Global Leadership.” GCL aims to train
future political, business and social leaders
affecting change in Latin America. The program
has brought in speakers such as the philosopher
Francis Fukuyama, famously aggressive Cuban
embargo-supporter Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R. FL), conservative Peruvian writer Álvaro Vargas
Llosa, and Aznar himself. The program’s syllabus, guest speakers and visits suggest an aggressively pro-business vision of development and
governance.
It is a vision that hearkens back to the 1980’s
and 1990’s, when nearly every government in
the region looked to the Washington Consensus
for guidance as they implemented policies of
trade liberalization, privatization, and deregulation on a massive scale. When a wave of progressive and centre-left reformist governments
came to power, these policies were brought to
a halt—in large part because politicians campaigned on promises to roll back unpopular
neoliberal reforms.
“There’s been a big break from traditional
parties ... in Latin America. It’s been occurring
in South America, but also Central America,
where the traditional parties were discredited
because of their systematic application of neoliberal policies,” said Alex Main, policy analyst
at the Washington-based Center for Economic
Policy and Research, who suggested that these
policies remain quite unpopular to this day.
“These traditional parties were swept off the
map to a larger extent. And you had new movements gain power.”
So while the kind of rhetoric employed by
the Latin American Board—extolling the virtues of the free-market and its apparently selfevident links to liberty and democracy—may be
commonplace in the United States, the Board’s
talk about training future leaders in “competitiveness” is unquestionably directed at the current political situation in Latin America. In most
cases, the preferred kinds of leaders are not in
power.
“We’re just trying to promote certain ideals—
the importance of liberty and the importance of
democracy. We’ve noticed there’s a lack of certain
ideals in current leadership in Latin America,”
GCL Academic Coordinator Diane Garza said.
“[The GCL students] are already leaders. We
Counterpoint
just want
to polish
them.
How can
we prepare
them?
Give them
tools and
knowledge,
take them
outside of their
bubble and send
them back.”
ot
every
GCL alumnus becomes immediately involved
in political activities upon returning.
There are even a few
who engage in social
entreprenuership. But
a disproportionate number have taken up leading roles in neoliberal think
tanks in the region, many of
which are affiliated with the
Fundación para el Análisis de
los Estudios Sociales, a think
tank chaired by Aznar and funded
by the Spanish Partido Popular.
Others have created similar leadership
programs based in Bolivia and Ecuador.
Several Spanish GCL graduates from the
program’s early years are now involved with
FAES and the Partido Popular. Prominent graduates include the current PP international relations advisor, the current head of the secretary
for international relations for the PP (who also
serves as coordinator for the program of global
issues for FAES), and a PP advisor in the lowerhouse of Spanish Parliament (who was president of iClass, the GCL alumni association, for
2009-10.)
Pia Greene, a 2007 alumnus from Chile,
N
APRIL 2011
is FAES coordinator for the country and also
works at the neoliberal Fundación Libertad.
Greene notably penned a piece for the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research
entitled “To be or not to be pro Pinochet,” in
which she concludes, “At the end of the day,
Chile and the whole world learned that societies require the biggest dose of liberty to prosper: Pinochet’s government was not an exception, since they were the ones who
planted the seed of a big
success.” The article is
accompanied by a video
featuring a montage of
photos of Pinochet set
to Queen’s “We Are the
Champions.”
Alejandro Barja, a
2007 alumnus from Bolivia, went on to found a replica of the GCL program in
Bolivia—the Bolivian Foundation of Leadership for
Global Competitiveness,
or FUNBOLIDER—which
aims to train leaders to
build a nation that is “just,
competitive, open to the
markets and lives in harmony.”
GCL graduates are also
particularly involved in Ecuador. Pablo Arosemena, a
2008 alumnus and FAES coordinator for Ecuador, is now executive
director of Fundación Ecuador Libre, a
think tank which also employs several
other Ecuadorian GCL graduates. The
president of the foundation is Guillermo Lasso, a bank executive and
executive board member of the Latin
American Board. Arosemena initially
agreed to do an interview and asked to
see a list of sample questions, but then did
not respond to an email that included a list
of questions about the Board and its relationship to FAES and his foundation.
Under the leadership of Lasso and other
GCL alumni affiliated with the Fundación
Ecuador Libre, Ecuador’s Competitiveness
Leadership Program was first held in 2009.
Students who apply are selected by the think
tank to participate.
he Latin American Board is ultimately
T
about magnifying and extending the
Georgetown name in Latin America, accord-
ing to co-founder and Managing Director Ricardo Ernst.
“I think Georgetown has a great opportunity of owning the Latin American region,”
said Ernst, who is also deputy dean of the
McDonough School of Business. “One of the
challenges that [Georgetown President John]
DeGioia [often talks about] is how do we make
Georgetown a global university … We
would argue that through the initiatives
and the work of the Board, plus the GCL,
plus the networks and all the things we are
doing—we are helping to define what a global
university is all about.”
A loose alumni network called the Latin
American Alliance had existed in the years
prior to the Board’s inception in 2006, but
Ernst said that he and Alberto Beeck, another
member of the executive board, thought that
the University should make a deeper investment in the region. When Aznar arrived at
Georgetown, the three were able to pool to-
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
gether their resources and contacts to create
the GCL program and assemble an impressive
collection of business leaders to serve on the
executive board.
GCL’s mission calls for “a new generation
of emerging leaders with the essential tools
in order to promote competitiveness, progress, regional integration and the insertion of
the region into the global agenda.” This year’s
GCL program features students from 16 different countries spread across Latin America,
Central America, and the Iberian Peninsula. In
order to apply, GCL aspirants must be between
24 and 34 years old, residents of “Ibero-America,” speak English, and possess an undergraduate university degree.
Felipe Dib, a GCL participant this year
from Brazil, said that he noticed a certain ideological perspective to the program, but that it
didn’t diminish its value.
“It has a liberal aspect. A right side—if we
have to say left, right, center,” Dib said. “We
listen, we have to judge from that perspective. I agree with many points; I disagree with
some.”
necessary to compete in a globalized market.”
“In the beginning we had a lot of criticism.
All these neoliberals …” Ernst said as his voice
trailed off. “I said [to the critics] publish in it.
Publish in it. If you have a paper that describes
[a topic] with academic rigor, why would we
not publish it?”
The academic journal’s advisory board
boasts an impressive array of high-profile
names: five ex-Presidents from the 1990s and
early 2000s (Aznar, Fernando Henrique Cardoso from Brazil, Vicente Fox from Mexico, Ricardo Lagos from Chile, and Andrés Pastrana
Arango from Colombia), a former director of
the International Monetary Fund (Rodrigo
Rato) and the current president of the InterAmerican Development Bank (Luis Alberto
Moreno). The editorial board is filled with a
slew of well-known economists and regional
experts as well.
The first issue, released in 2007, also included Aznar’s “Latin American Agenda for
Freedom,” which was also printed by his think
tank and has become kind of mission statement of FAES in the region.
“[The GCL students] are already leaders. We
just want to polish them. Give them the tools
and knowledge and send them back.”
The GCL syllabus benefits from its relative
institutional free rein. As an advisory board
to the Office of the President and the Provost,
the Latin American Board is required to meet
with the President and Provost only once a
year. And because the Latin American Board
is a certificate-granting program, the GCL syllabus is not reviewed in the same way as the
syllabus of a typical degree-granting program
at Georgetown.
Provost James O’Donnell said that this is,
in fact, a fairly common arrangement. For instance, Georgetown’s School for Continuing
Studies grants certificates, not degrees. For
the University’s many certificate-granting programs, responsibility for oversight and quality
control lies with the faculty who administer
it. In the case of GCL, this means Ernst, who
along with Diane Garza effectively designs and
approves the syllabus each year.
Ernst emphasized that the GCL program is
not ideologically biased, and stressed that he
has brought GCL participants to meet the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian ambassadors in years
past to challenge the students’ views.
“Neoliberal, neoconservative, all this stuff
… it’s a set of rules that people want to assign
labels to them,” Ernst said. “At the end of the
day, what do we believe? In freedom of expression, freedom of beliefs, and the fact that the
market is very strong.”
Of those three beliefs, one seems to stands
out above the others in the mission statement
of the Board’s academic journal, the Journal
on Globalization, Competitiveness and Governability. The mission statement calls for a
“re-conceptualization” of the State.
In order to ensure integration into the global economy, its final paragraph reads in Spanish, “It is necessary to abandon protectionism
and isolationism, and substitute them with
processes of liberalization and deregulation.”
And then even more bluntly, “In this context,
the State renounces its primary role in the
development of the country, limiting itself to
establishing the appropriate bases so that economic agents can reach the levels of efficiency
Counterpoint
“It’s a little bit naïve to pretend, well, I don’t
have a philosophy, [that] I just move through
the world without having one,” Ernst said. “I
would argue that we believe in the Jesuit tradition of let’s have a debate, let’s talk about it ...
We believe that by having a conversation with
people who do not [agree with you], there is a
possibility of you changing your view or you
reinforcing your own belief. And that’s why
we’re 100 percent open, 100 percent open to
any type of conversation or discussion.”
Fr. Dean Brackley, S.J., who is a professor of
theology at the Universidad de Centroamerica
in El Salvador—where he has taught since
1989, after volunteering to fill the position of
one of the six Jesuits massacred by the rightwing military—remained unconvinced by this
claim.
“If the Board really embraces ‘debate and
dialogue,’ they might broaden the participant
field,” Brackley wrote in an e-mail. “Maybe
they could invite President Rafael Correa of
Ecuador, who explicitly espouses Catholic social teaching. Maybe they could invite ex-President [of Honduras] Manuel Zelaya, presently
in exile in the Dominican Republic. Maybe
they could invite Nobel Peace Prize winners
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina or Rigoberta Menchú of Guatemala. They could invite any number of eloquent victims of human
rights abuses in Latin America.”
Fr. John Dear, S.J., a priest, activist and
writer nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace
Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also disputed Ernst’s appropriation of Jesuit values.
“I don’t know any Jesuit thing about being
open for ‘debate,’” Dear wrote in an e-mail.
“We are on the side of Jesus, who was against
all oppression, poverty, war and empire.”
he GCL program is split up into four
T
leadership modules—political, business, social and personal leadership—and the
syllabus is structured so that different weeks
in the program are focused on one module at a
time. Each module features lectures, presentations, speakers, and sometimes includes visits
13
FEATURE
to institutions in Washington. This year’s participants have already toured Capitol Hill and
met with a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They have also visited the
Gallup Poll headquarters, the Brookings Institute, the Organization of American States, and
the Pentagon. Visits to the State Department, the
CATO Institute, and the National Democratic
Institute—a conservative think tank based in
Arlington, Va.—are planned.
In addition to lectures related to each module, guest speakers come in to give non-academic lectures. Because the GCL program also
focuses on “social leadership,” there are some
notable exceptions to the standard fare of powerful business figures or right-wing political
leaders. This year’s program, for instance, includes a visit from Felipe Vergara, the CEO of
Lumni Inc., a company that offers scholarships
to students in exchange for a percentage of their
future income.
But that isn’t to say that GCL shies away from
speakers with a political agenda. In the first
week, there were guest lectures from Orlando
Gutierrez, professor and co-founder of the Directorio Democrático Cubano, an anti-Castro
group, and Patricio Walker, a senator from the
conservative Christian Democrat Party of Chile.
There was also a guest lecture on “Personal
Leadership” from Pedro Burelli, a Venezuelan
oilman, investment banker, and fierce critic of
President Chavez. Burelli colorfully recounted a
conversation he had with Chavez as he was considering a run for the presidency. Burelli told the
students Chavez was “absolutely devoid of any
factual knowledge.”
“That’s an incredible phenomenon—that
this guy had nothing in his head,” Burelli said.
“... [He is] completely irresponsible. He’s talking,
making statements based on things that he had
no clue [of]. And that, sad to say, is a very potent
combination to win an election.”
Burrelli added that the widespread support
that propelled Chavez to power was a direct result of mismanagement by the previous administration.
Aznar himself also delivered an address—
but a photographer for Counterpoint was barred
from entering because the former President’s
security team did not authorize photos, according to Garza. The address was then deemed to
be off-the-record for press.
Another guest speaker was Pablo Casado, an
up-and-coming star in Spain’s Partido Popular
and personal advisor to Aznar. Casado, a former representative in the Madrid Assembly and
current president of the Madrid branch of his
party’s “Nuevas Generaciones” faction, is probably best known for a memorable address at his
party’s 2008 convention.
While Casado might seem like an odd choice
next to the other higher profile names who visited the program, Ecuadorian journalist and sociologist Decio Machado wasn’t surprised at all
by Casado’s presence. In fact, Machado said that
Casado is emblematic of FAES’ larger strategy
for training political leaders for Latin America.
Machado, who helped found the Madridbased political newsmagazine Diagonal, argued that Aznar’s FAES has developed a political strategy in Latin America based on the
Partido Popular’s dominance of the Madrid
Assembly. Young, articulate, foreign-educated
men and women with backgrounds in business,
like Casado, have re-energized the party and
come to comprise a majority of the representatives in Madrid.
Machado said that FAES is trying to import
14
Photo by Eric Pilch
THE GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS LEADERSHIP
PROGRAM brings in Latin American students for a four
month certificate program.
this successful model to Latin America, where
the organization is training a new generation
of leaders to present a coherent alternative to
the progressive or populist-leaning governments that hold power.
“There’s a formation of new political cadres
with a new ideological basis that is as much
from the entrepreneurial world, the business world, as it is from the political world,”
Machado said in Spanish. “What they’re doing
strategically is [building] a new line of young
neoliberals that can take up the old right.”
fter years of operating self-sufficiently,
A
there seems to be a recent effort on behalf of the Board and for the GCL to engage
more with the Georgetown community.
“When I came in to work with this, it was
at the point at which this was very much under
the radar because nobody had taken the time,
or had the vision to say, hey, let’s promote this,”
Diane Garza said.
Garza, who has been the GCL academic coordinator two years, said that she is now making a concerted effort to publicize the Board’s
activities—in marked contrast to years past. Although publicized events used to be few and far
between, Garza said she is now trying to coordinate an event this month with CLAS. Additionally, the Latin American Board and CLAS are
also now sharing event calendars, and Ernst
said that he was trying to coordinate a meeting
with School of Foreign Service Dean Carol Lancaster, CLAS Acting Director Erick Langer, and
other faculty who study Latin America.
Langer declined to comment on specifics
on the Latin American Board but said that he
wanted to improve the relationship between
both organizations.
“When I started, one of my first efforts was
to clear the air and get everybody on the same
wavelength,” Langer said. “I’ve been working
very hard to open things up and make sure we
coordinate.”
Counterpoint
Despite these small steps, there remains a
remarkable lack of awareness of the Board’s
presence and its activities among some of
Georgetown’s most senior faculty in the government and Latin American studies departments.
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
for Spanish and Portuguese Gwen Kirkpatrick
said that she first learned of the Board when
it was mentioned in a Latin American Studies
executive committee meeting this year.
Multiple faculty members said they were
unfamiliar with the Board’s specific activities,
but they expressed concern about the choice
of speakers for the GCL program and its limited interactions with the rest of the University.
They declined to speak on the record.
This lack of familiarity with the Board
stands in stark contrast to the way Ernst characterizes the relationship.
“We have been trying from the very beginning to actually cooperate with them … our
idea is, to what extent can we outreach and
make this one voice for Latin America?” Ernst
said.
Kirkpatrick characterized the relationship
differently.
“This is not the face of the whole university
in its relation to Latin America,” Kirkpatrick
said. “There’s a whole dimension of research
and teaching that goes on that isn’t reflected
in it … There’s a whole lot of social justice and
cultural exploration that’s done at Georgetown
that’s not reflected here.”
Joanne Rappaport, professor of anthropology, remains concerned about the Board’s lack
of transparency—and suggested that the University’s “contents initiatives” should be aired
in public and undergo the scrutiny of specialists. In the Board’s case, this means CLAS.
“Such programs should not compete for
limited funding and spaces … with regular
academic programs such as Latin American
Studies, which is what has happened with the
Latin American Board,” Rappaport wrote in an
e-mail. “As much as outreach is important at
a university like Georgetown, these activities
should not cut into or detract from the fundamental objectives of our university, which are
academic in nature.”
particularly telling example of the
A
Board’s institutional isolation is its
reaction to a long-term community service
project led by Veronica Salles-Reese, associate professor in the Spanish and Portuguese
Department and director of the Latin American Studies Certificate.
Salles-Reese’s project, the Georgetown
Community Andean Education and Leadership Project, calls for greater University assistance to students who benefit from the Indigenous and Afro-Latino Scholarship Program.
The IALS program, funded in part by
Georgetown, finances educational opportunities at small universities in Latin America
and community colleges in the United States
for 80 students hailing from rural parts of
Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. SallesReese’s proposal aims to engage Georgetown
undergraduates in the IALS students’ home
communities once the scholarship students
return, and calls for Georgetown to match
up IALS students’ with NGOs in their countries so that they can implement projects in
their communities. Salles-Reese also wants to
establish a “buddy system” linking Georgetown undergraduates with IALS scholars, and
APRIL 2011
FEATURE
JOSE MARIA
AZNAR
Photo cour tesy of FAES press room
wants financial support for IALS students to
install water-purifying plants in their communities.
Salles-Reese, who is taking an unpaid leave
of absence to work on the project, said she had
contacted Ernst and attempted to obtain financial support from the Board, but that he had
never gotten back to her.
“The students that come here to the Board
are usually entrepreneurial, they are leaders,
and they’re upper-class,” Salles-Reese said. “I
presented [the proposal], but I have had no
support. No answer.
And I gave it to Ernst
a long time ago when
I started the project.”
The Board’s lack of
support for the project appears to contradict
both the social leadership aspect of its GCL
program and its efforts to work together more
with the rest of the University.
Ernst doesn’t see it that way. He said that he
met with Salles-Reese and circulated the proposal among the executive board, but it didn’t
receive enough support.
“One thing [the board] is not is a bank,” he
said. “It’s not a bank to finance any and every
single proposal.”
He added that the executive board is mostly
focused on funding the scholarships for GCL
students. The investment in GCL students is
one that theoretically pays off long after the
students complete the four-month program.
GCL participants pledge that they will
return to their home country to apply the
knowledge and experience obtained from the
program—or the Board reserves the right to
rescind the certificate. This pledge for students
to return to their countries of origin is, in effect, at the heart of the Latin American Board
project.
“If at the end of the day, we want to change
the region and make it more competitive …
how can we do it if we take [only] 30 students
a year? That’s too slow of a program, too slow
of a process,” Ernst said. “That’s when we de-
is Honorary Chairman of the Latin
American Board.
school students are able to take advantage of
the tuition-free, academically superior public
universities, forcing poorer students to pay the
cost of a private university education. There
are also graduates like Roberta Machado, who
looked to a GCL graduate’s organization in
Chile as a model to found CREA + Brazil, an
organization that provides extracurricular activities to middle-school-aged kids.
But the board also seems to expect something else from its “multiplier effect.” The
2011 GCL program hosts
Felipe Algorta, a current
Uruguayan parliamentarian of the conservative Partido Nacional,
Carmen Iglesias, a Spanish member of FAES, and
Victor Lopez Torrents, a member of the Partido
Popular’s Nuevas Generaciones.
In Ecuador, for instance, the “multiplier
effect” has created a group of GCL alumni affiliated with the neoliberal Fundación Ecuador Libre, which could have very real political
ramifications come the next presidential election in 2013.
With President Correa’s opposition weak
and fragmented, Ecuadorean journalist Decio
Machado suggested that Guillermo Lasso, who
is a Latin American Board member, executive
president of Banco Guayaquíl, and president of
the FAES-affiliated Fundación Ecuador Libre,
could make for a strong dark-horse challenge
from the right. There would certainly be no
shortage of bureaucrats for his administration.
“Lasso is surrounded not by the traditional
The multiplier effect, or the idea that alumni start up
projects in their home country when they return, has
resulted in the extensive network of GCL alumni.
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
cided, let’s multiply it and created the underlying principle of the multiplier effect.”
The multiplier effect, or the idea that alumni start up projects in their home country when
they return—to train “even more leaders” and
“catalysts for change,” the website explains—
has resulted in the extensive network of GCL
alumni that exists today.
t would be a vast oversimplification to asI
sume that the Latin American Board is
simply a political project of President Aznar.
There are GCL students this year like Felipe
Dib, who wants to create an educational institute in his native Campo Grande to better train
public school teachers. Dib wants to reverse
what he called the “paradox” of the Brazilian
educational system, in which wealthier private
Counterpoint
15
FEATURE
Photo cour tesy of Ricardo Ernst, Georgetown University website
RICARDO ERNST
is the Director of
the Latin American
Board progream at
Georgetown.
politicians, but by a new generation of technocrats formed in this new line of young politicians with elite academic backgrounds who
have studied at foreign universities,” Machado
said in Spanish. “This new generation of conservatives is the strategy of FAES.”
Machado argued that the influence of FAES
is part of a growing trend in the region. Amid
the backdrop of progressive or center-left governments rising to power and leaving traditional political parties in the dust, foreign think
tanks and NGOs are playing an increasingly
important role in rebuilding an alternative to
the economic and social policies they see as
backward, anti-competitive, and in some cases,
anti-American.
Of course, foreign think tanks and NGOs
have long supported policy or regime change
in Latin America. Greg Grandin, professor of
Latin American history at New York University,
pointed to the practice of “democracy promotion” carried out through groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives funding from Congress. He highlighted
that the political objectives of such groups are
often couched in vague rhetoric that celebrates
the virtues of freedom and democracy.
“It’s using the rhetoric of the free market as
proxy for freedom in general,” Grandin said.
“It’s an ideological campaign to promote a definition of democracy as indistinguishable from
free markets.”
Grandin cited the failed 2002 coup against
Chavez, the 2004 coup in Haiti, and the 2009
coup in Honduras as examples of foreign-funded groups helping to overthrow governments in
the region.
“[The coups] are really carried out by these
NGOs that are funded through these democracy promotion networks. They’re unaccountable,” Grandin said. “They will fund another
group and another group. It’s a way of creating
parallel organizations that may remain inactive
until they’re needed.”
16
Evo Morales blamed foreign-funded
NGOs—and FAES specifically—for fueling the
2008 unrest in Bolivia, which stemmed from an
internationally-condemned autonomy referendum in the natural gas-rich province of Santa
Cruz.
And in Venezuela, the Latin American Board
has more than a few intimate connections to
the opposition.
Rosa Rodriguez, who served as associate
director for the Board and academic coordinator for GCL from 2006 to early 2009, was also
serving at the time as a representative to the
United States for SUMATE, a self-described
“pro-democracy non-governmental organization.” However, the group is widely referred to
in the international press as an “opposition organization” and has received funding from the
NED. Rodriguez, who is now an independent
consultant and no longer works for SUMATE,
writes on her LinkedIn resume that part of her
job with SUMATE was to “develop strategic relationships with U.S. government officials and
agencies.” She was also responsible for posting
the 2007 promotional video online. Rodriguez
initially agreed to answer questions by email
only, but then did not respond to a list of questions sent to her.
And on the executive board sits the powerful Gustavo Cisneros—a Venezuelan media
mogul who was the wealthiest man in Latin
America, according to a 2006 Forbes ranking.
Cisneros’ political views are no secret, and neither is his backing of the failed coup in April
2002—so much so that Newsweek said Cisneros was “at the vortex of the whole mess.” His
private television station Venevisión broadcasted a firmly anti-Chavez line in the days
leading up to the coup, and he allegedly used
his offices to host the interim government that
fell after two days.
Certainly, the Latin American Board has
not engaged in anything resembling a coup
since its inception. But the kinds of speakers
Counterpoint
and visits that comprise the GCL program, the
Board’s explicit objective of creating and training leaders who interact in a massive network
of alumni with seemingly similar political
views, and some members’ informal relationships with think tanks and FAES suggest that
the Board is very serious about combating current political trends in the region—even if the
political leadership component is not the only
dimension of its flagship program.
t the moment, the University appears
A
unconcerned about its support for what
has developed into a much larger network of
individuals, organizations, and political connections.
Provost James O’Donnell said that because
GCL is ultimately a Georgetown program, the
University expects the faculty who administer
it to engage in quality control. He also emphasized that Georgetown is always sure to maintain its institutional oversight.
“We are very careful that donors do not
define or manage our academic program,”
O’Donnell said.
But this refers only to the GCL program. On
its website, the Board advertises the leadership
programs in Bolivia and Ecuador, which can
and do pursue donors without the oversight of
the University. The program in Bolivia displays
the Georgetown name and logo on its website.
O’Donnell said that these splinter programs
have not come up in conversation.
“The University is pleased with the work of
the group and the input they provide regarding important issues related to Latin America,”
University spokesperson Julie Bataille wrote
in an email. “Georgetown is appreciative of
President Aznar’s involvement and support.”
Perhaps the University is unaware of the
deeper irony—that exactly two hundred years
after independence for most South American
countries, the head of Georgetown’s Latin
American Board is a Spaniard.
APRIL 2011
INTERVIEW
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Bob Shrum
Bob Shrum, a 1965 graduate of Georgetown College, served as a speechwriter and campaign advisor to Democratic candidates for nearly 40 years. He
is the author of No Excuses: Confessions of a Serial Campaigner and wrote Ted
Kennedy’s famous address at the 1980 Democratic convention. Shrum now contributes a column to The Week and teaches at New York University. Interview
conducted and transcribed by Eric Pilch.
What stands out about your time at
Georgetown as an undergraduate?
I spent a large portion of the four years involved in intercollegiate debate and was named
the top debater in the country my senior year. It
was in many ways the most powerful part of my
education and had a big impact on my life ever
since.
[The University] was a smaller place than it is
now, and it was a wonderful place to grow and to
learn. It was more a college than a university at
that time. The emphasis, I think, for most of the
faculty, though not all of it, was more on teaching
than on research, and I think I got an extraordinary education.
In those days, the Philodemic Society both
sponsored the intercollegiate debate team and
conducted weekly debates. I was a constant participant in those weekly debates, and we were
constantly debating public policy, the Kennedy
Administration, politics.
The Philodemic Society is a very conservative group now.
I was asked to judge the American Medal
Debate—I won the American Medal when I was
in college—several years ago, and the topic was
“Resolved: the ancients were superior to the
moderns.” And I thought it was absurd. To me
it wasn’t a serious debate about serious issues.
I probably wouldn’t be very involved in today’s Philodemic as its presently constituted, but
I would be involved in intercollegiate debate.
We debated whether or not the compromise
that president Kennedy had negotiated with
the communists through Averill Harriman that
neutralized Laos was the right policy or not. We
debated civil rights. We debated the great issues
that pressed in on upon that time and that were
very much alive and on campus.
Georgetown was, when I was there, a relatively conservative campus. But it was a stimulating, interesting environment, and you felt constantly close to what was happening because of
the city you were in.
How would you diagnose the 2010 midterms for the Democrats? Did you see the
outcome as inevitable?
I think the midterms were, more than anything else, a referendum on the economy. They
were a rerun of what happened to Ronald Reagan at the other end of the ideological spectrum
in 1982. People were frustrated with the level of
unemployment and the apparent slowness of the
recovery, and Democrats paid the price.
We could have saved more seats if we had
a message that went beyond just asking people
whether they wanted to go forward or back,
which seemed contentless and not very motivating. Frankly, a lot of people, when asked if
they wanted to go back, didn’t necessarily want
to go back to Bush. But they would have liked
to go back to full employment, their house being worth more, their 401k being substantial and
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
whole. So I think that was the wrong question.
We should have fundamentally posed a question
about who was going to fight for the interests of
ordinary working people in this country and who
was going to fight for the elites.
Given your experience as a consultant,
how would you rate the administration’s
messaging and tactics thus far?
Well first, I’m not a consultant anymore. Now
I teach at NYU, and I commentate and write
about this stuff. I’m a big defender of the President. I think he’s achieved more legislatively
than any progressive president in 50 years. The
much-derided stimulus I think undoubtedly kept
the country and the world from plunging into a
second Great Depression. The mess [Obama] inherited from Bush was even worse than anyone
thought at the beginning, so it’s taken longer to
turn around.
I have real disagreements with some of
my progressive friends who believe he should
have held out on a public options in the health
care bill at all costs. The cost of that would have
been no health care bill. The financial reform
bill could have had some provisions that were
stronger. I think Chris Dodd and Barney Frank
who are decidedly progressive and people I admire did the very best job they could getting a
bill that could pass through Congress working
with the President. If you look at the sweep of
what was done, it’s really considerable.
Now we’re going to have a great battle because the Republicans want to undo as much of
this as they can. I think they’re probably not opposed to closing down the federal government
to try to get their way. They’re testing the waters now to see if they can come up with some
explanation that blames the President for closing down the federal government. If they think
they can pull it off, then I think they would actually dare the move.
On the debt limit, you have these people
from the Tea Party. And, actually, I think at the
Tea Party meetings they must smoke something, because they actually believe that you
could refuse to raise the federal debt limit and
that would be a viable policy. Refusing to raise
the federal debt limit, which Ronald Reagan did
regularly by the way, would throw the full faith
and credit of the government into doubt, probably cause a huge panic in financial markets,
affect the value of everyone’s home and make
ordinary financial transactions very difficult. It
would be an insane policy. But you have people
who want to do it.
Do you see the administration getting anywhere with the new Congress?
Look, the President has done the right thing
in saying, “I’m ready to work with the Republicans.” Do they, for example, want to work on entitlements? The President has said he’s prepared
to work with them on reforming corporate tax
rates. So you could do that in return for closing
Counterpoint
Photo used under Creative Commons from kenudigit
BOB SHRUM is enjoying retirement after 40 year career
running campaigns for Democratic candidates.
loopholes and get a lower corporate tax rate.
I think all those things are smart. Will they
work? I don’t know, and I doubt it. But, on the
other hand, there are a lot of people who doubted the president could ever pull off the deal he
pulled off in December.
Now Republicans are going to try to defund
the federal government to the greatest extent
possible. I’m cynical enough to think that they
would actually welcome an economic stagnation
or new downturn as a route to victory in 2012.
There’s probably going to be, at some point, a
very big battle.
You worked for Senator Ted Kennedy for
years, including in 1980. Obviously President Reagan won the 1980 election, arguably shifting the perception of politics in
this country. Given your vantage point as
a former strategist, do you see any hope of
a revitalized liberalism in the vein of Kennedy?
I certainly do but it depends on the course of
the next two years. At this point in the Reagan
administration, David Broder wrote a column
writing off Reagan. He said, this is a failed presidency and we’ll think of it as kind of a 1.5 year
period when Reaganism was tried and found
wanting. Then the economy revived, and Reagan was reelected and he inaugurated a new
conservative era.
Obama was criticized for saying this during
the campaign—I don’t know if you remember
—that Reagan was a transformative president.
Hillary Clinton tried to turn that into Obama saying he agreed with Reagan’s policies. That obviously wasn’t what he was saying, but it was true.
So I think a lot of this depends on events, and I
think there is a real chance, if the economy turns
around and Obama is vindicated, that you will
see a more progressive moment in America.
Do you have any desire to get back into the
campaign world, or have you left that behind forever?
I think forty years was enough. It wasn’t quite
forty years, but it was almost forty years, and I
probably did it as long or longer than anybody
else. It was a powerfully rewarding life in which
I got paid for doing what I loved and what I deeply cared about. I can’t imagine a more ideal occupation than that. So I’m very happy with it. But
I really enjoy teaching and I enjoy writing, so I’m
retired, period.
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW with Bob
Shrum at COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG.
17
REVIEWS
BY
ERIC PILCH
Essays from the brink
THE MEMORY CHALET
By Tony Judt
(Penguin Group, Inc. $25.95)
From his deathbed, a historian reminisces
I
magine for a moment that you are
completely immobilized, save for the
ability to speak with some difficulty.
Every movement you wish to make—from
scratching the itch on your leg to readjusting your glasses—is not possible without the
help of another. Now consider this predicament if you retained complete control over
your mental faculties. This was the position
of famed historian Tony Judt shortly before
his death from ALS, more commonly called
Lou Gherig’s disease.
“The salient quality of this particular
neurodegenerative disorder is that it leaves
your mind clear to reflect upon past, present, and future, but steadily deprives you of
any means of converting those reflections
into words,” Judt writes.
As a prolific communicator of ideas—
Judt calls historians “philosophers teaching with illustrations”—this posed nearly
an insurmountable challenge. Yet, Judt responded by constructing The Memory Chalet, a moving memoir of short reflections
that usually address an idea or theme from
his life. Each of the chapters was composed
fully in Judt’s mind, often while lying sleeplessly at night, and then communicated verbally and transcribed. The resulting portrait
reveals a man who not only had intimate
involvement with momentous events of the
twentieth century, but who would also come
to be regarded a leading public intellectual
on both sides of the Atlantic from his post at
New York University.
Like Christopher Hitchens’ celebrated
memoir that provides firsthand accounts
of the evening when Bill Clinton did not
“inhale” at Oxford, Hitchens’ sheltering of
Salman Rushdie after the Iranian fatwa, and
Hitchens’ travels to Iraq with major architects of the invasion, Tony Judt seems to
have a remarkable ability to be present at
Judt opens the essay with a description of
his own budding relationship with a graduate student, thirty years his junior. This is
buttressed by the cautionary tale of a tenure-track professor ruined by accusations
of sexual harassment. Judt openly questions
the decision to spend time with his student.
But the initial anecdote is left hanging as
he transitions to comment on the profound
changes that resulted from the sexual revolution and their impact on romantic relationships. Then, in a bold and unexpected
move, Judt returns to the opening scene of
the essay, in a manner that is astonishing.
“So how did I elude the harassment police,
who surely were on my tail as I surreptitiously dated my bright-eyed ballerina?” he
asks. “Reader: I married her.” Despite the
shocking nature of Judt’s conclusion, the
essay highlights his ability to effortlessly
blend memoir and social commentary—a
feat that makes the book a tremendously
gratifying read.
While each of the chapters of The Memory Chalet paints a picture from Judt’s life,
one animating theme runs throughout the
pages—namely, the author’s fervent belief
in public goods and services and the erosion of their provision in both England and
the United States over the past thirty years.
Judt was born and raised in the aftermath of
the Second World War, during the creation
of the British welfare state. He recounts a
fascination as a young boy with the London
tube that serves as a vehicle to discuss the
virtues of public transportation and the unfortunate privatization of the British railway
system. Similar fondness is evoked for the
more egalitarian British society of his youth,
when rampant materialism was much less
prevalent.
The defense of social democracy became an animating theme of Judt’s work
“We never doubted there would be an interesting job
for us and thus felt no need to fritter away our time
with anything as degrading as ‘business school.’”
TONY JUDT
major historical moments. As a young Zionist, Judt worked on a Kibbutz during the
Six-Day War, although he would not give up
the opportunity to study at Cambridge, as
he was urged to do by Israeli settlers. While
studying as an undergraduate, he would
travel to Paris for the famous 1968 student
protests. In later life, Judt learned Czech to
cope with a failed marriage and mid-life crisis. This new skill allowed him to conduct
seminars in the Soviet bloc, where he would
befriend many of the dissident figures who
liberated and led Eastern Europe in the
1990’s.
Yet, the personal is illuminated along
with the historical in The Memory Chalet.
Many of the essays explore the fragility of
human interactions, the nature of academic
life, and Judt’s unending fascination with
the United States, his final home. Among
them is the brilliant “Girls, Girls, Girls.”
18
late in life—not the typical outcome for an
academic who was hardy known outside
the ranks of modern French historians in
his younger years. His 2005 magnum opus
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 is
considered to be not only a standard-setting
book on the subject, but as literary critic
Nikil Saval explained, can “be seen as one
long paean to the construction of welfare
states across Western Europe in the aftermath of World War II.” Toward the end of
his life, Judt’s alarm about the total erosion
of these institutions that protect the common good was articulated in both a compelling and increasingly public manner.
The book lll Fares the Land, also composed as the effects of ALS ravaged Judt’s
body, provides a bracing critique of the
“overwhelmingly materialistic and selfish
quality of modern life” and urges young
people to focus on careers that serve the
Counterpoint
Photo by Eric Pilch
public interest. This is a theme taken up
in The Memory Chalet, as Judt reminisces
about Kings College, Cambridge contemporaries who disproportionately worked in the
arts, education, public service, and journalism—what he terms “the unprofitable end
of the liberal professions.” In The Memory
Chalet Judt writes, “Unlike young people
today we never doubted that there would
be an interesting job for us and thus felt no
need to fritter away our time with anything
as degrading as ‘business school.’”
The power of Judt’s overarching critique, articulated in many forms, comes
not only through the conventional focus on
greed and inequality but in the distinctive
way he ties these concerns to the health
of society as a whole. Drawing on a plethora of comparative data in Ill Fares the
Land—ranging from social mobility to the
incidence of mental illness—he makes the
case that the rightward turn in both England and the United States has led to profound consequences. “As recently as the
1970’s, the idea that the point of life was to
get rich … would have been ridiculed: not
only by capitalism’s traditional critics but
also by many of its staunchest defenders,”
he writes in Ill Fares the Land.
As the profits of the modern economy
have been channeled overwhelmingly to
a privileged few and the public sector suffers from neglect, Judt’s warning from the
verge of death should not be overlooked.
The posthumously published collection of
essays that became The Memory Chalet is
a fitting tribute to a man overflowing with
ideas, and serves as a testament to the power of his mind until the final moment his
body failed.
APRIL 2011
REVIEWS
BY
MATT COLLINS
In Donald, the joke falls flat
As the “War on Terror” continues, Elliott and Martin miss the point
I
t’s a rough time for political humor.
After 2008’s Democratic takeover, the
burden of bitter stone-throwing has
fallen to Republicans, whose attempts at dark
humor are rarely funny and often veer into
the uncomfortably violent. The Tea Party’s
grassroots following has made it worthy of
political jabs from the left, but even to libertarian sympathizers the jokes come too easy;
there’s little humor in calling a group senile
and extremist when those are simply proper
descriptors.
But then, who to take aim at? With Republicans back in the House, flaccid jokes on John
Boehner’s name and skin tone have started to
emerge, the weak results of rusty machinery.
Until the GOP starts to do things worthy of disdain, however, the far wittier end of the political spectrum is at a want for suitable targets.
And thus we’re left with things like Donald.
According to the jacket, “Donald is a highwire allegory” exploring “what would happen
if Donald Rumsfeld…[was] abducted at night
from his Maryland home [and] held without charges in his own prison system.” Coauthored by Stephen Elliott and Eric Martin,
respectively founder of and contributor to the
progressive cult-crit webzine, The Rumpus,
the novella is also published by the proudly
independent McSweeney’s publishing house.
That is to say: expect little nuance here.
Which is not inherently problematic. The
best satirists know that to give your target a
fair shake is to undermine your own argument—this is the reason Stephen Colbert is
a far more effective cultural critic than Jon
Stewart. The bigger problem here lies in the
timing. We’re five years removed from the end
of Rumsfeld’s second tenure as U.S. Secretary
of Defense. The joke’s gone stale.
But Elliott and Martin push the joke nonetheless in Donald, even if the novella’s conceit
seems like a tossed-off idea laughed about
over dinner and then forgotten. When exploring specifics, the pair’s satire is expectedly
hit-or-miss. Rumsfeld’s search for guidance
in the Qur’an—the only book he can get his
hands on while in captivity—is delightfully
ironic. Irony centered on showing Rumsfeld as
sympathetic, however, shows the holes in the
groupthink that produced Donald; it assumes
too much. In order to find humor in a broken
Rumsfeld’s outpouring of emotion, one must
have already assumed him to be incapable of
such emotions.
As a meta-joke, the conceit works slightly
better. The Darkness at Noon-esque exploration of a leader falling prey to his own system
is well-presented here, even if it would have
been more powerful five years ago. Although
at times the authors leave Rumsfeld behind to
simply explore the details of American military
torture and interrogation, their protagonist’s
voice frequently shines through. Elliott and
Martin’s Rumsfeld is cold and calculating, with
an all-knowingness that serves as a constant
reminder of who is facing this torture.
The presentation of torture and its psychological effects serves as the novel’s strongest
feature. The detached, almost journalistic way
with which they approach Donald’s torture is
enlightening for those unaware of the practices in American detention camps. McSweeney’s
brand of postmodernism—which strongly
advocates the blurring of fiction and non-fiction—seems especially appropriate here. With
no way of truly knowing what goes on in these
high-clearance camps, well-researched fiction
may be the best we can get.
These psychological effects also show the
novel’s sole impressive technical achievement.
Rumsfeld’s descent into deliriousness delivers
the requisite time manipulation and questions
narrative reliability—not new tropes, by any
means, but interesting ones. Outside of this,
though, the novella is technically unfulfilling. Elliott and Martin’s prose is unremarkable, the clunky sort that gives the minimalism explored here a bad name. Structurally it
is equally mundane—despite their connection
to McSweeney’s, Elliott and Martin’s approach
is decidedly unplayful, dry and chronological.
With no way of truly knowing what goes on
in these high-clearance camps, well-researched
fiction may be the best we can get.
DONALD
RUMSFELD
continues to defend the
tough policies he put
into place.
COUNTERPOINTMAGAZINE.ORG
Counterpoint
DONALD
By Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott
(McSweeney’s Publishing $12.00)
Photo by Eric Pilch
This is because of the grave sincerity with
which they approach the subject. For all the
satire, Elliott and Martin are dreadfully serious
about their disdain for Rumsfeld. And though
it’s an understandable despisal, one has to
wonder about the pair’s cardiovascular health.
Such protracted, pent-up fury can’t possibly do
them any good.
It also leads to what is perhaps the book’s
most important question, which the authors
themselves probably did not mean to ask: why
hasn’t this changed? Sure, it’s cute to see the
framer of the highly-questionable “War on
Terror” be (quite literally) beaten by his own
system. But isn’t it a bigger concern that this
system is still in place? Although Donald is a
work of fiction, its world remains a real one,
its occurrences not impossible. The passing
of the torch from the Bush administration to
the Obama administration has seen little more
than a change in name for Rumsfeld’s war.
There are, of course, excuses to be made
for the new administration. And though some
of them may make logical sense, there really
is no excusing the continuation of a truly detestable addition to the American system. The
mainstream left’s blind eye can be attributed to
little more than fanboyism, supporting the team
for simply being the team—the worst possible
symptom of our two-party system. To be against
anything Obama does, it seems, is to support
Republicans—even if that means supporting his
continuation of Republican policies.
For a novella all about irony, then, Donald’s main accomplishment is rather ironic. By
closely examining our nation’s system of torture and interrogation techniques, Elliott and
Martin have brought up an understandable
anger. They direct this anger at a past target,
and the result is pedantic intellectual exercise—miles away from the activism we should
encourage. Having fun at Donald Rumsfeld’s
expense doesn’t change the fact that there are
still innocents going through hell at the hands
of America.
19
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